Colin Self's highly personal and distinctive style of drawing led the artist Richard Hamilton to call him 'the best draughtsman in England since William Blake.
Born in Norwich, Self attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1961 to 1963 where he befriended David Hockney and Peter Blake, who began to collect his work. By 1964 he was showing at the cutting edge Robert Fraser Gallery, and by 1968 Self was producing technically groundbreaking prints. In fact, as a printmaker, Self has been a great innovator and was a central figure in the 1960s boom in printmaking. Drawing images from a variety of commercial sources, he created the 'Power and Beauty' series of screen-prints (1968) at Editions Alecto. His engagement with Cold War politics and the nuclear threat gave his work a sinister mood and political edge that was distinct from the mainstream of Pop art. In 1995 the Tate Gallery in London presented a display of their entire holdings of his work, including an important group of drawings, sculptures, paintings and prints acquired in the preceding years directly from the artist.